May 4, 2010

What Questions Do Your Customers Ask at Your Tradeshow Booth?

Do your customers ask questions at your tradeshow booth?

Are they curious about things like flavor, color, delivery time, production values, technical details or design elements?

Do they want to know MORE?

Of course they do! That’s what customers do. They’re curious. They give feedback. And often it comes in the form of a question.

At your next tradeshow make a point of writing down questions that your booth visitors ask about your product, service or company. This can be beneficial for a number of reasons.

First, you get more insight into what’s important to them. Yes, you may already know a lot of those questions. But pay attention and see if any of those questions are new. Are they bringing up things that you haven’t heard yet? Is there an indication that your customers are shifting desires around your products? Do they want something new? Can you find out now and provide it before your competitors?

Next, you can compile those questions and put them on your website or blog. By creating an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page or post on your site, you’re reaching out to those visitors who are interested in learning more. While a specific visitor may not have that particular question, by browsing your page or blog post they get a chance to learn more about your products – and especially to find out what’s important to other customers. They may find out a new way to use your product or service that they hadn’t thought of before – which makes your product more valuable to them.

You can also use questions as market research. If your customer are asking questions about something that your company DOESN’T provide, it gives you some insight into what the marketplace is interested in. Maybe it’s time to look at developing solutions to those problems they’re bringing you. Which gives your company a wider reach in the market.

So many businesses look at questions as a nuisance – something to be avoided.

Not you – you welcome them, right? You welcome them because it gives you more opportunities to learn about your market, and gives you a leg up on the competition (who are trying to avoid those questions).

Make a point to keep track of as many of those questions that come up at tradeshows. Take them back and share them with your sales and marketing team, management, designers, product gurus…whoever can benefit from having front-line questions that are burning in the mind of those clients and potential customers. And you know those questions are burning because they took time to stop at your booth and ask them!

Treat questions as valuable bits and pieces of information. Tradeshows are a great place to field questions – make sure you’re doing it on a regular basis.

photo credit: ϟnapshot 19

April 23, 2010

9 Tips to Put a Social Spin on Your Trade Show Marketing

The following is a guest post by Dennis Nixon, Sales Manager at Smash Hit Displays

In the days leading up to an exciting trade show attendees are likely tweeting about it, Facebooking about it, and blogging about it too. You’re likely doing the same as a trade show marketer, right? So take advantage of it! Integrating social media marketing into your trade show marketing before, during and after the main event can be the difference between having a successful trade show booth, and an unsuccessful one.

The world of social media and blogging can be quite an overwhelming one, but never fear. I’ve put together a list of 10 tips to help you put a social media spin on your trade show marketing efforts.

Twitter Search

Did you know: every single conversation on Twitter (except those from people who have private Twitter streams) can be searched via Twitter search? Simply type in the name of the trade show you’ll have a booth at and you’ll quickly see others talking about the same event. Make sure to vary your keywords, and soon you’ll find a plethora of data to start prospecting prior to the event.

Twitter Lists

If you’re an avid tweeter than you likely know about Twitter lists. These can be a great way to compile a list of potential attendees, whom you can follow during the trade show. What will they be saying at the event? Where will they be having dinner or after-trade show events? Stay up to date. You don’t even have to actually ‘follow’ the users to put them in a list. AND you can keep the list private if you don’t want your competition finding all the users you spent time finding. In addition, don’t forget about the value of using Twitter for traffic, discussed in the recent post: “Are You using Twitter to Drive Traffic to Your Blog and Event?” on this blog.

Facebook Search

When you’re logged into Facebook you have access to their huge internal (and external for that matter) search engine. View all results for a specific term, people associated with that term, page associated with that term, groups, posts by everyone, posts by friends, etc… This can give you back results for many users going to the trade show, thinking about going, or just associated with it.

Facebook Groups and Pages

Using the search function detailed above, you can find groups and pages of prospects interested in the trade show you’re attending. This can be extremely helpful to start a conversation with prospects and tell them about your booth, where you’ll be located, and the fun stuff you’ll be giving away/doing at the event.

Use Flowtown

Have a prospects e-mail address but not sure if they are using social media? You HAVE to check out FlowTown. With this website you can upload your prospects e-mail addresses (before, during or after the event) and get information such as name, age, gender, occupation, location AND all the social networks that person is on.

Contests on Social Networks

Some trade show marketers suggest utilizing contests on social networks to help you spread the word about the trade show you’ll be at, in addition to getting a bit of notoriety and branding your business. Tell your fans and followers that you’ll be at the next big event, and the first five people to retweet or repost about it will get a prize when they show up to the event. There are so many ways you can spin a simple contest before and during the trade show, the possibilities are endless.

LinkedIn

You’re likely using LinkedIn, heck millions are. But are you utilizing it to help with your trade show marketing? Tell your connections about your upcoming event, ask them to help you spread the word, or even connect with prospects after the event takes place. There’s so much you can do with LinkedIn, you just need to think outside the box.

LinkedIn Groups

If the event planner for the trade show you’re is good they’ll have set up a LinkedIn group. Use this opportunity to start connecting with prospects and chatting them up. Connect with others, help spread the word about the event, and afterward discuss what was learned or how it can apply to their future endeavors.

Blogger Outreach

Connecting with bloggers that are going to events is extremely important. They’re already tapping into the vein of your industry, so why not utilize their current reader base? Try securing a guest blogging spot, schmoozing them when they’re at the event, and staying in contact afterwards. You never know the types of connections you’ll be able to make over a few drinks.

If you still aren’t convinced that social media can work for you (or that others are using it), check out Tradeshow Insights post “Social Media and Tradeshow Marketing Results”, where respondents to a poll stated that a whopping 31% have already incorporated social media into their exhibit marketing!

Have you used social media in your trade show marketing before, during and after the event? What successes have you had with it?

About the Author: Dennis Nixon is the Sales Manager at Smash Hit Displays, a company providing trade show displays and booths to vendors throughout the United States.

April 14, 2010

7 Ways to Use Surveys at Tradeshow

When exhibiting at a tradeshow, you’re there to make sales, brand your business, brand your product, schmooze with industry partners, scout out competitors and okay, do a little partying (perhaps).

Are you using the time to do some specific research by using surveys? No? Too bad, it’s a great way to uncover useful information that you may not find elsewhere at ten times the price.

Since you’re already there at the tradeshow, you might as well take advantage of the opportunity. Here are seven ways you can use surveys at tradeshows to bring home more than just some sales and the memory of a great after-hours party.

1. Product comparison: put your product up against a top competitor, much like the old cola wars taste-tests. Take the labels off of your brand and a competitor’s (if you dare), and put them up against each other side by side. If the results come back in your favor, issue a press release, tweet it out.

2. Quickie 2 or 3-question survey: easy to put together and easy for your visitors to take 15 seconds to answer. You can hold a clipboard and pencil, and ask visitors if they can spare just 15 seconds to answer three questions. Be specific and don’t go past that time. Ask the questions, and then finish with a “Would you like to learn more about our product?” and if they say yes, direct them to an associate. If they say no, thank them for their valuable time and release ’em back to the wild.

3. More in-depth survey: offer this only to people that have indicated a willingness to learn more about your products or services. If they seem like good prospects, ask if they mind if you can take just three minutes with them. The survey should be handed to them either in the form of a piece of paper on a clipboard or a laptop. Either way, invite them to leave their name and contact information at the end so you can follow up with the more interested folks.

3. “Live” visual feature or product comparison: set up a graphic and interactive exhibit that asks visitors to make a choice between various possible features or products you may be offering in the near future. Tell them that this research is part of the evaluation process your company is doing. Whether you’re showing 2 or 5 or 9 choices, make the graphics easy to understand and the choices easy to make (hopefully!). Have baskets or jars set up so that visitors can drop something (tennis balls, marbles, etc.) into a jar that echoes their sentiment. Over time each jar will slowly fill up with the choices. By doing this you are giving a visual accounting of how the ‘voting’ or surveying is going.

4. Brand effectiveness: depending on your company and brand, you may want to survey your visitors on how they perceive your brand in comparison to your competitors. While this may take a little more thought to set up, the survey can yield some very worthwhile results in how you are perceived in the marketplace.

5. Measure effectiveness of pre-event marketing: if you do extensive pre-event marketing within your industry in trade magazines or other media, you can survey the effectiveness. If you do a lot of social media promotion you can also judge its effectiveness. Set up a survey that asks visitors IF they heard of you, WHERE they heard of you and if the MESSAGE they saw inspired them to visit your booth (or if they just stumbled across it…).

6. Get input for future events: take some time to ask visitors what impacted them the most at the show. The feedback can be used to help craft your booth, marketing, graphics and promotional slant for the following year’s show.

7. Get feedback on a new product: if you have a product that’s been on the market a short time, the survey can be used to get feedback on how that product is perceived, used or consumed by visitors.

Take a few moments and ask yourself ‘what can I learn from all of those thousands of tradeshow visitors that will help the company?’ Then come up with a great way to elicit that information via a survey. Feel free to share any ideas you may have in the comment section!

photo credit: bisgovuk

March 22, 2010

The Big Picture vs. The Details

You may have a good grasp about your overall BIG PICTURE tradeshow marketing plan. But what about the DETAILS?

Overall execution of your plan at the show may be great, but if you slip on details, someone – a potential customer, perhaps – is bound to notice.

Some of the details to track: Is the booth clean and tidy? Are all your marketing materials in synch? Do all the colors match or complement your brand? Are your staffers greeting people with a smile? Do they fill out lead cards with all the information you require? Do the garbage cans get emptied when they start to spill over?

Details are important because they help complete the picture. If the carpet hasn’t been attacked with a carpet-sweeper and there are crumbs or bits of paper or junk, people will notice. If your graphics are peeling at the edges, people will notice. If personal belongings are not stowed out of site, people will notice. They’ll also notice if your staffers are talking on a cell phone, eating, drinking or sitting with their arms crossed.

So cross the T’s and dot the I’s – take care of details and the overall perception of your booth will be more positive.

photo credit: Stefano Mazzone

March 19, 2010

Natural Products Expo West: Photo Collection

Just back from the Natural Products Expo West show, where some 3025 exhibitors had their wares on display. Interpretive Exhibits, where I’m the VP of Sales and Marketing, had eight various custom client booths on display, including Bob’s Red Mill, Nancy’s Yogurt, Natracare, Mountain Rose Herbs, Bi-O-Kleen, Hyland’s, gDiapers and Earth Mama Angel Baby.

Here are a few photos of those booths, as well as others and a few Twitterers I ran into:

Natural Products Expo West 2010

December 7, 2009

Podcast: Tunisha Hubbard Interview

Tunisha Hubbard is a tour manager and brand spokesperson for various live corporate and ‘guerrilla’ events. We met on Twitter a couple of weeks ago and I asked if she would do a brief podcast interview to discuss how she works tradeshows and other promotional events.

Her website bio describes her as ‘engaging, friendly, and enthusiastic, she loves that her job lets her interact with people, whether it is one person or fifty.’ Her enthusiasm is evidend in the interview as she discusses her various appearances and corporate promotions she’s been involved with.

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Tunisha Hubbard website

Follow Tunisha on Twitter

October 17, 2009

Podcast Interview: Jay Tokosch of Core-Apps

With their “Follow Me” app for iPhone and Blackberry, Core-Apps started serving the tradeshow market. What is an app? Even if you know what an app for your iPhone is, how does it work? Who creates them?

Jay Tokosch of Core-Apps discusses the company and their new app targeted squarely at the tradeshow universe.

October 12, 2009

Increasing Tradeshow ROI

Here’s a guest post by Kevin Ehlers of Event Technologies of Long Beach, California

In today’s economic climate, increasing tradeshow ROI is as important as ever. While we can get very in depth on how to do this, I’d like to throw out a few quick trade show strategies that can help your company close more deals from your trade show leads.

Trade Show Lead Qualification – Being face to face with prospects is the main benefit of exhibiting at a trade show. The conversations that take place on the show floor determine which leads are good opportunities. The challenge is recording that conversation. Just scanning their badge with an exhibitor lead retrieval system doesn’t cut it. You need to either have to use a trade show scanner with custom qualifiers or use lead retrieval software with custom surveying capabilities.

Lead Rating – Once you have the trade show leads qualified you can use a lead scoring system to rate the leads (hot, warm, or cold – A, B, or C, etc.). There is no need to waste the sales reps’ time with the cold leads, so only send out the good leads. This will keep the reps engaged in your program, save them time, allow them to put more energy into the quality leads and, as a result, increase trade show ROI.

Sales Lead Distribution – With each day that passes, the trade show leads get colder and colder. You ideally want to get the leads to the reps within 2 or 3 days after the show. This gives the reps a week or so to contact all of their leads before they turn cold. Rapid sales lead distribution will increase your sales reps’ success rates.

Trade Show Lead Follow Up – As I just mentioned, the leads get cold quickly after a show. Trade show lead follow up needs to happen while the show (your company) is fresh in the prospect’s mind. Industry studies show that the leads are cold about 2 weeks after the show ends. A good idea is to send out an email immediately after the show to every lead saying “thank you.” This will keep your message fresh in their mind while you go through your lead rating and distribution processes.

I hope this post will help you rethink your trade show strategy. While these tips will take a little of your time to research and implement, they will reap rewards in the form of increased trade show ROI.

Event Technologies provides custom solutions for exhibitors that want to employ technology to improve the means by which they collect, distribute, follow-up and report on the leads that they generate at their tradeshows and events. Kevin Ehlers is the VP of Sales and Marketing and can be contacted at Kevin@event-technologies.com or www.event-technologies.com.

August 31, 2009

What’s in a Name? The Quandary of Marketing “3G”

Let’s be up front. I don’t own an iPhone. I don’t have a cell phone with 3G networking (at least I don’t think I do).

And yet I see advertisements every day on TV that hawk the ‘fastest 3G’ networks out there, etc. As if it’s supposed to mean something to me.

Look, I think I’m a typical electronics and IT consumer. I am online for hours a day, both business and home. I spent too much time on Facebook and Twitter. I check into LinkedIn now and then. I cruise my favorite websites, such as CNN.com and ESPN.com daily. I subscribe to way too many e-mail newsletters. So I know the Internet pretty well.

But I get confused and confounded when I see ads from AT&T or Verizon or whoever touting their latest ‘3G’ networks.

I don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.

I can make some presumptions, though. Perhaps it’s a new way for cell phones to work faster? No? How about getting online with an iPhone or Blackberry? Am I getting closer?

I think I’m on the right track, but it still doesn’t answer the question: Why are these companies presuming their customer even know what they’re referring to?

Hey, let’s go Googling!

Searching for ‘3G network’ the first listing (under the sponsored links which must have cost thousand of dollars, right?) is a Wikipedia page:

Let me quote a couple of sentences: “International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000), better known as 3G or 3rd Generation, is a family of standards for mobile telecommunications defined by the International Telecommunication Union,[1] which includes GSM EDGE, UMTS, and CDMA2000 as well as DECT and WiMAX. Services include wide-area wireless voice telephone, video calls, and wireless data, all in a mobile environment. Compared to 2G and 2.5G services, 3G allows simultaneous use of speech and data services and higher data rates…” blah-de-blah…

So I’m right. I guess.

I was camping with a friend over the weekend. She delighted in showing me her new iPhone ($99!) and all the things it could do. Her take on 3G? “I think it means Third Generation,” she said, “but Third Generation of what I don’t know.” I guess it just means faster.

To my mind, the phone companies hawking the 3G network capabilities are making a giant leap. Whether it’s a leap of faith or a leap of confusion I’m not sure. No doubt this has been discussed at the highest levels of advertising agencies and the phone companies selling the technology.

But doesn’t it seem like the same thing when we used to see ads comparing the online dial-speeds: “14.4 MBS vs 28.8 MBS vs. 56.6 MBS…” and we just assumed that – even without know what the hell they were referring to – the bigger the number, the better?

Perhaps that’s the answer. The ad agencies and phone companies just keep throwing confusing terminology at us, assuming that we’ll at least grok the essence of what they’re saying: 3G is good! 4G is better! Well, whenever 4G arrives, which it must! Right? As one follows two…

Still, I can’t help but think that they should do a bit of explaining. What is 3G and why is it so cool? Why would you want it? What benefits does it give you? I mean, more than just ‘fast.’

But then again, maybe that’s the only thing that matters. We see “3G: Faster!” And that’s all we need. Gotta have it!

Are you making assumptions with your marketing? Does your audience understand? Or do they just need to know that it’s faster, better, higher, brighter?

It reminds me of the old story about how one ad agency – several decades ago – took an everyday consumer item – beer – and by describing it in great detail to their audience, managed to catapult themselves into holding the lion’s share of the market. But it’s just beer! Right, but when you tell your audience how you do what you do, and what the reason is, and what it means to the end user, you position yourself against the competition.

I don’t see this happening with the positioning for 3G networking. It’s all the same. No specifics.

I don’t know the answer. I’m just asking the question.

However, I’m nearly convinced I should get an iPhone if I can find one for $99. Pretty cool stuff.

UPDATE: I was thumbing through the latest edition of Portland’s Business Journal and ran across an ad for the new ‘4G’ network. Hey, I thought I was just making it up…

Sprint 4G ad in Portland Business Journal

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